


Found Out

by fishfingersandjellybabies



Series: Clone!Dick AU [1]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Clone!Dick, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 20:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4235064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishfingersandjellybabies/pseuds/fishfingersandjellybabies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the clone is found out to be exactly that. Tim and Damian try to help him cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Found Out

**Author's Note:**

> I just feel, out of everyone, Damian and Tim would understand the clone the best and want to be supportive. Everyone else is too caught up in their grief and don’t want to fall for the ‘trap’ of the clone, and while Damian and Tim are too, I feel like they would be the ones to try and ignore/push down their grief by helping/hanging out with the clone. This whole AU is after Damian was resurrected, by the way.

It didn’t go as he hoped. 

Though, he didn’t know how he hoped it would go at all. 

He doesn’t know who found out first. Bruce was never going to tell and Damian had thus far appeared to have his own agenda to keep the information quiet. But as soon as one of the others found out, the news spread like wildfire.

Barbara – Babs, he called her _Babs_ – stopped coming around the manor. And Stephanie could only smile sadly as she gave her lies. _Babs is busy. Her dad needed her. She’s visiting some friends. She’s out of town._

Jason was angry, and Stephanie said that was normal, and that it wasn’t that he was angry at him. At least not specifically. Though, more than once, Jason came stomping up to him, hissing, “You’re _not_ him. So don’t you dare fucking _try_ to be.” 

But out in the field, out as Nightwing and Red Hood, anyone so much as got too close to him, and Jason would beat them unconscious, no ifs, ands or buts about it. 

Cassandra began visiting more often, according to Alfred, but not to see him. It seemed she had suddenly taken a very sharp interest in hanging out with her littlest brother. Taking him to parks or the movies. Activities that involved Dick being nowhere near them. 

And that might have been the most painful. She was being protective, he got that. But she thought…god, she thought Dick was going to _harm_ one of them.

And programming or not, Dick could _never_ hurt one of them. 

Tim…didn’t seem all that bothered. Sad about it, definitely. But not as… _disgusted_ as some of the others seemed to be. Of anyone in this ridiculous group, Tim always seemed the most willing to be upfront about things. 

“My best friend is a clone, so…” Tim shrugged one morning, kindly handing Dick a freshly made cup of coffee. They had sipped at their drinks silently for a few seconds before Tim muttered, “I just never thought I’d come across one of…of hi…of my big brother.” 

And the more the others began to find out and react, the less Bruce was around to help. Dick felt like he was just thrown in a lake and didn’t know how to swim.

Like he…Like he just jumped off a trapeze without a safety net. 

And he didn’t like that feeling. Not one bit. 

“Just ignore them.” Damian said one afternoon. They were sitting in the yard, he Damian and Tim. Damian was drawing, Tim was reading the paper. Alfred was on the patio, just watching silently. Dick was…he was really just trying to enjoy the day. “They’re all worthless anyway.” 

“Damian.” Tim scolded. 

“They’re faulting him for something he had no control over.” Damian shot back, though not viciously. Alfred had mentioned a few days prior that the two seemed to be getting along better, that it might have been Dick’s doing. Dick couldn’t see _how_. “They’re acting like children.” 

“They’ll come around.” Tim paused. “Hopefully.” 

“Their loss, if not.” Damian hummed. 

Dick tried to smile as the two talked around him. Eventually, he just curled his knees up to his chest. “You guys don’t have to defend me. I’m not _him_ , I know that.” 

“And they need to know that, too.” Damian spat, not looking up. “Outside of Father’s orders, you have never tried to _be_ Grayson. You are your own person and that should be enough for them to at least give you a _chance_.” 

Damian was scribbling furiously now, almost ripping the paper. The idea of clones always seemed to rile Damian up, and Dick could never figure out why. Tim suddenly reached across Dick, grabbing Damian’s arm. Damian instantly froze, instantly dropped his pencil. 

“What he means is, Dick, the original one, wouldn’t want us to treat you differently.” Tim glanced up at him. “Not for the decisions outside of your choosing.” 

“And, call us selfish.” Damian sighed, flopping back on the grass. “But you’re enough like Grayson that it…it’s calming.” He huffed up at the clouds. “And I would rather be in a world with a Grayson- _ish_ person, than no Grayson at all.” 

“Helps the grieving process a little bit.” Tim admitted with a shrug, giving Dick a lopsided smile. “Can you tell we all have a bit of separation issues?” 

Dick just smiled back, throwing an arm around Tim’s neck and reaching out to tap Damian’s knee. Both boys grumbled, neither boy pulled away. 

“Perhaps we shouldn’t hope they come around, Drake.” Damian mumbled. 

“Why not?” Dick asked. 

“More for us?” Tim tried, then broke out into laughter, leaning into Dick’s side. “Like Damian said. You could really, _totally_ call us selfish.” 

And as the conversation deteriorated into lame jokes, cloud watching, attempts to tickle the youngest and an eventual nap in the garden, Dick remembered that nothing thus far had gone as he hoped. 

In fact, it might have gone just a little bit better.

**Author's Note:**

> [Other Clone!Dick stories](http://fishfingersandjellybabies.tumblr.com/search/clone%21dick)


End file.
